by John Young
Diamonds are a popular Yule or Christmas gift. Likewise, Christmas and New Year are very popular times to “pop the question,” and the question is usually accompanied by a diamond.
How you spend your money makes more difference in the world than is always obvious, and diamonds are no exception.
Though some minor changes have been implemented to help impede the trade in so-called “blood diamonds,” there are still no controls in place to keep diamonds mined by child slave labor (very popular in Sierra Leone) from the market.
Even if a diamond wasn’t mined by a child slave at gun point, there is a high likelihood that it was cut and polished by child labor in the State of Gujarat in India.
And then, of course, there is the matter of blood diamonds. Blood diamonds are defined by the United Nations in such a way as to support existing governments. So according to the U.N. definition, if the U.N. recognized government uses diamonds to fund a genocide, that is NOT a blood diamond, but if someone fighting a guerrilla war against that government were to use diamonds to fund the war effort, it IS a blood diamond.
Of course, in Africa, the ethnocidal mess they have going on there is heart breaking and quite frankly it hardly matters who mined the diamond, that money is going to be used to oppress or kill someone. According to official figures, over 3.8 million people have died in wars over, or funded by, diamonds in Africa. That’s pretty nasty.
I realize that as far as certain organizations have labeled us, we’re supposed to all be indiscriminate haters who want to see children of other races die. Alas, we don’t conform to such convenient mythology. All races are on this earth for a reason. The fact that we want to preserve our own genes and history while having our own territory and a government that favors our interests doesn’t mean that we believe innocent children in Africa should have guns put to their heads for nothing more important than someone’s vanity.
If it is the beauty of a diamond that you desire, consider laboratory diamonds created by the HPHT or CVD process, which can actually be superior to natural diamonds in terms of hardness and appearance. Companies such as Gemesis and D.NEA can provide complete diamond jewelry with laboratory diamonds. Though these are somewhat less expensive than mined diamonds, they are by no means cheap.
If it is simply the expending of a great deal of money that you desire, the price of gold has gone through the roof, and there are gold mining operations right here in the United States.
So for gift-giving this holiday season or for popping that vital question, please consider the impact of your purchase and avoid mined diamonds.